Category Archives: Pop Culture

Money, status, resources, and fame are the male equivalent of lips, hips, thighs, ass and titties. Their mere presence in the room is enough to arouse hypergamous swelling of lubricious lady pearls and stimulate the pimp instincts of the greatest Mack to ever send a Ho to the track…PU$$Y.

The fact that hypergamy (1) remains an integral part of the mate selection process for many women well into the twenty-first century says a lot about the tumultuous state of gender relations in the wake of feminism’s three waves.

Women place a high value on a man’s economic means and social status no matter how self-reliant and economically independent they may be. Men are viewed on some level as utilitarian success objects to be exploited on an as needed basis.

“Power is the greatest aphrodisiac“-Henry Kissinger

Power and prestige trump physical drawbacks and personality deficits. Obesity, stupidity, ugliness, narcissism and sociopathic tendencies are tolerable in direct proportion to how much money is attached to them. Who a man is means less than what he can do for a woman.

It is a given that within a Matriarchal culture like Black America hypergamy would be overtly championed as the preferred relationship dynamic. This is due in large part to the harsh economic conditions most black people live under. The value placed on a man’s “ass and titties” (status and resources) is quite high.

Bear in mind that our entire relationship paradigm takes place within within the white supremacist social structure which negatively impacts every aspect of black life, especially gender relations.

“Make that nigga take care of yo’ kids/ make that nigga call yo’ kids his/ make that nigga get out there and work/ make that nigga buy you a Dooney and Burke/ it’s all about that nigga take care of me/ pussy whipped nigga come save me” – E40 , Captain Save-A-Ho

“can you pay my bills?/ can you pay my telephone bills?/ do you pay my auto mo bills?/ if you did then maybe we could chill/ I don’t think you do, so you and me are through” – Destiny’s Child, Bills

A mythical gilded path of least resistance leading to a promised land of ease, luxury, and leisure has many a THOT(5) clicking the heels of her indoor swapmeet red bottoms 3 times and wishing for a short cut to a sure shot.

The idea of never having to struggle again in this life is irresistable to a chick who ain’t never had shit , especially one raised to view men as natural resources to be exploited.

At the polar opposite end of the spectrum lie the great majority of men programmed from a young age to believe that the only metrics of manhood are social position, wealth and power.

Without them you are not a man.

You get no female attention , no respect and no love.

So get out there and do whatever it takes.

Who teaches us that ?

The PU$$Y.

Invariably these misguided souls meet in the mating market place where youth, beauty, and sexual access are exchanged for money, status and control of resources.

Unfortunately, love rarely enters this transaction but children often do, usually as part of some poorly thought out ratchet scheme.

Once these kids have out lived their usefulness you can find them filling the beds of group homes and seats in special ed. classes until they are old enough to press rewind and repeat the cycle.

The comfortable snare of the female predator is laid deep within the male subconscious mind where female acceptance and validation are associated with mother love. Bundle this with an unexamined belief that beauty equals goodness then wrap it all up with a moist pink ribbon of sexual gratification and VOILA!!!

Even the laziest man eater can feast on a steady diet of doctors, lawyers and Indian chiefs who place no real value upon themselves beyond what’s assigned to them by the second sex.

The sad thing here is many of these men can be counted among the supremely talented, rich and famous. In black culture such men are usually entertainers and athletes. These are the brothers with plenty of male “ass and titties”.The ones who seemingly go out of their way to get caught up with pole twerking box hustlers whose primary talents are sexual.

“Back then hoes didn’t want me/ now I’m hot/ Hoes all on me”– Mike Jones, Back Then

” celebrity culture plunges us into a moral void-no one has any worth beyond his or her appearance, usefulness, or ability to succeed. The highest achievements in celebrity culture are wealth, sexual conquest and fame. It does not matter how these are obtained…once fame and wealth are achieved they become their own justification, their own morality. How one gets them is irrelevant. Once you get there those questions are no longer valid.”- Chris Hedges, Empire Of Illusion. pgs.32-33

“Instead of living for, in and with yourself as a reasonable person ought, you seek only to fasten your feebleness on some other person’s strength“- Charlotte Bronte , Jane Eyre ,Ch. 21

Today social media and reality television have spawned a new breed of cunning, avaricious, super ratchet who will stop at nothing and use anyone to achieve the synthetic fame one gets for fucking someone well known.

Meet the Status Hacker.

Say hi to The Basketball Wives, The women of Love and Hip Hop, Super head, Kat Stacks, V. Stiviano , and the mother goddess of all these ho’s, Kim Kardashian.

The PU$$Y starts pimping the moment the tell all book is published, sex tape is leaked or TMZ plays the secret recordings. Next up , the Oprah interview , Playboy spread, a reality show and ideally marriage to a high dollar baller.

If a ring ain’t in the works , then the “annuity” baby plan is put into effect by the coldest pimp in the game….. The MotherPimp.

“as far as female pimps are concerned , the mother pimp is the boss. she has been there and back; she has all the answers because she has been asked all the questions.”- The Pimps Bible, pg.110

The black blogosphere and Twitterverse stays bubbling like a pot of fermenting Chitlins’ with stories about high profile black entertainers/athletes putting babies in their side pieces/jump offs/ backup ratchets.

Back in the day an “outside woman” making a pregnancy power move took the pay off and stayed low key. Just ask Bill Cosby, Dr. J, Joe Jackson and a million other old school players who kept their bid’ness out the street, but that was waaaay before the advent of the internet.

The “clean up” women are no longer content to stand in the shadows of stardom and abide by the side piece code of conduct. The media has created a lane for them pursue their own bastardized form of fame which they often decide to augment with the conception of a bastard child or two.

In the new millinium , if you are a famous man of means and you pump a pearl necklace into a side chick’s safe deposit box, then prepare to break yourself and check in with your new pimp.

trick ass nigga.

Lets take a brief tour of the side piece/ mother pimp hall of fame:

Evelyn Lozada– This” juice box vendor” is a locker room legend in the NBA, NFL and MLB. Prior to her destruction of Chad “ochocinco” Johnson’s pro football career by means of dubious abuse claims, “la panocha peligroso” Lozada latched onto former NBA 100 million dollar dunce Antoine Walker’s wallet for a ten year run.

According to Walker his decade long access to her vagina cost him dearly. Now near penniless “…admits he easily spent a couple of million dollars on his ex-fiancé and even her family benefitted from his generosity , but when he fell on hard times financially he accuses her of bouncing on him and never looking back…My thing with Evelyn is she reaped a lot of benefits of my wealth. And when it got tight she chose to go in a different direction. It’s tough when you take care of some people and you make sure they are good, their family, their daughter, and they just go left field.” (2)

Recently, she’s clamped her vaginal vortex of ruin onto the bank account of Pro baseball player Carl Crawford . This Simple Simon just signed a 149 million dollar pro contract that will pay him an estimated 20 million dollars a year.

To secure her un-earned portion of this future homeless hall of famer’s millions, the shrewd Ms. Lozada put on her mother pimp hat, stuffed a catchers mitt up into her cervix and caught every single sperm this short bus slugger grand slammed into her money hole.

At 38 years old She stole home base with a new born multimillion dollar baby.

Maybe Mr. Crawford should have talked to Antoine walker or Chad Johnson before fouling out with this long legged losing streak.

Aja Metoyer – Aja Metoyer is a well known groupie with her pimp hand deep inside Damon Wayans Jr.’s pocket courtesy of the two daughter’s she squatted out for him. However, as every good pimp knows you got to have more than one ho in your stable otherwise you ain’t really pimpin’, so Aja got out there on the track and pulled her a NBA thoroughbred , none other than DwayneWade.

Not content with merely swiping some super star semen from a hollow headed dullard with effete fashion tastes, she left her dirty panties where they could be found by penning a public letter to Mr. Wade’s fiancé Gabrielle Union :

“I’d like to thank Dwayne Wade for always making me feel comfortable on your side of the bed. Hiding pictures in your drawer, you know the night stand next to your side of the bed, the one with two drawers. I think the picture is the one with you and Sanaa Lathan in it…also you are a little too old to be making Valentines Day photo albums, Leave that to the young girls your man cheats on you with. FYI your man likes fat asses you might need to get you one. Last but not least, I will send you a picture of the bags your man left in the hotel room I fucked him in lol”(3)

….I bet she’s a great mom and a fine role model for her two daughters and new born son with Dwayne wade ( go get your kids NOW Damon and Dwayne).

Oh, and did y’all know she comes from a family of seasoned mother pimps ?

dass riiight!!!

her sister Cristen Metoyer has a baby by NBA baller Joe Crawford.

Brynn Cameron- Y’all know wasn’t no way in hell these crafty ass white women were gonna let these non- white chicks do all this mother pimping without getting some of that post partum cash too.

Meet Brynn Cameron, a blonde, blue-eyed mother pimp of the highest order with very discriminating taste in pro nut sauce. She has one son by Heisman trophy winner and NFL washout Matt Lineart , who kicks in a princely sum of 189, 000!! a year in child support.

Clearly not one to be slackin in her mackin’, Pimpin’ Brynn is airtight with her game and recognizes, like Aja “moneybags” Metoyer, that a real pimp needs more than one ho. So she Milked a few ounces of Blake Griffin into her penis flytrap and gave birth to a healthy seven pound child support check to go along with Matts dwindling cash. See his career is floundering and she needed some long term security scrilla cuz ho money ain’t sho money.

Vanessa Lopez- This c-list Va Jay Jay merchant has been slinging her high mileage pastrami tunnel to those with big incomes and small I.Q’s for longer than most NBA players careers. She is probably best known for her lawsuit against the seven foot one World Champion super trick ShaquilleO’neal. Her lawsuit charged the towering lummox with racketeering , invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Even though this all star dick rider lost her court case she delivered some decisive blows to the dense behemoth’s public persona in her deposition:

When asked if Shaq had any sexual hang upsVanessa said :

‘he would often put his hands over his private area and say “I know it’s small , don’t laugh”. And he was just a little embarrassed about that…when he would call and want to get together when I had my period Shaq would say “I don’t care” and when we would see each other he had like a fetish that he’d just like to give me oral sex during my period” (4).

Ah , well I guess Shaq likes red sauce on his fish tacos….

Ms. Lopez only other note worthy accomplishment is signing a $25,000 abortion contract with NBA player J.J. Reddick. Now that’s some cold mother pimping right there, getting money for your dead baby.

Pimpin’ ain’t easy.

Now lets take a look at the stuffed and mounted heads housed in the Trick Ass Nigga Museum of Natural Stupidity

Dwight Howard-8 kids in six years , 6 mother pimps . This is the perfect physical specimen of a big , dumb ass muh fucka. He is a mother pimps wet dream and most certainly a future candidate for the Antoine Walker Nigga Who Used To Be Rich award.

Shawn Kemp-11 kids, 9 mother pimps. In the words of the patron saint of all dope fiends, his ‘highness’ Rick James , cocaine is a “helluva drug”.

Scott Skiles- 8 kids , seven mother pimps. Ol’ Scotty here is upholding the fine NBA tradition of marginal former white players winding up as head coaches. The talented Mr. Skiles was competitive with the brothers on and off the court busting out 8 kids with seven different women who were not his wife.

Had a secret family containing 5 of his 14 daughters which he kept hidden for 20 years.

Pressured the children who didn’t belong to him and his wife to not call him dad so he could preserve his public image as a family man.

4 of the 5 Daughters in his secret family accused him of molesting them. He was aquitted of all charges.

Claimed his secret baby mama’s retirement benefits after she had passed away.

In fairness to this pint sized piece of rotting foreskin , the molestation charges were brought after he refused to turn over his baby mama’s retirement checks to their five daughters….but still, this nigga is waaaaay out of pocket.

$500,000.00 in back child support and 250 million down the drain had Evander still boxing at 50.

Hopefully he is punch drunk enough to forget how fucked his life turned out.

If your head is hurting by now its because the plug that connects you to the Hypergamy matrix has Been yanked. Most of you cats will realize this , panic and rush to reconnect with your last pimp. I’m not mad at y’all because you don’t know any better.

Men that have been raised by mothers who manipulated them by extending acceptance and love on a conditional basis are susceptible to being played by women with ulterior motives.

Your minds have been shaped from birth to crave female approval and reassurance which subconsciously gives you a sense of belonging , of being accepted, of being loved , of feeling secure within yourself.

The deep irony of this is that it locates a man’s sense of who he is outside of himself and places it within the snug, moist confines of the greatest pimp of all time.

The male sex drive is not only biological force, It is also an intense desire to connect emotionally, spiritually and psychologically. As men often we don’t realize this because the physical hunger overshadows everything else.

Gentlemen, you’re looking in the wrong place for the right things.

A con man’s greatest weapon is the mark’s own greed and this same principle enables the PU$$Y to have a man blissfully hustling backwards into her Gucci bag.

A real woman ain’t your mother and she doesn’t owe you unconditional love, so don’t expect it. By the same token , you ain’t her daddy so don’t feel obligated to meet her every need.

Real ride or die love has nothing to do with one person exploiting another. It’s about two people valuing each other for who they are and not for what they look like or what they can do for you monetarily. Beauty fades , money comes and goes, so choose wisely.

common sense.

What It comes down to is simply treating another person how you want to be treated and accepting nothing less in return . If you can’t do that , then you need to go sit your ass down somewhere until you grow the hell up.

You can never get conned by saying no and you can’t be pimped unless you’re willing to ho.

I had just finished dancing to like thirty seven choruses of Happy with some elderly Slavic, Ukrainian and Argentinian folks (who would’ve never gotten along if it hadn’t been for this song), when I popped onto this Afro Alchemist blog for a bit of light, cultural thought stimulation…

… and POW!! Kody’s railing my man Pharrell for merely attempting to help give our wonderful Black community some new refreshing space, new water to drink, new insight… new dynamic vision to operate from…

… a break away from the Gangster grills and booty slapping lyrics that we too often listen to with our kids. It’s obvious that this guy is on top of his game and sees a vision of how he can help move us all towards uplifting not only our own humanity, but also contribute to everyone else’s.

Now I know it’s hard to twerk and make that booty clap to Happy, but sometimes we have to try new things. Hell, I had just gotten through ordering like five different colored, fresh mountie hats! And I’m appalled that anyone would attempt to knock this cat down.

But it won’t work anyway. This cat’s frothiness is uncontainable; he’s sincere, he’s talented, he’s rich, he’s caring. he’s enchanting, he’s talented, he’s rich, he’s visionary (did I mention he’s rich and talented?). The guy is like Bugs Bunny meets Quincy Jones! Seriously, screw Kanye and let this guy into Disney studios right away. And I bet we’ll all, at the least, be momentarily emancipated and feeling GUUUD, just like when Frankie Beverly crooned it (though good ol’ Frankie also mentioned the Joy n Pain, Sunshine n Rain polarity balance). So I guess it was actually Bobby Mc Ferrin who sang, “Don’t Worry! Just Be… ” (there goes that “H” word). But Pharrell is here to tell us screw they galaxy reverberating institutional inequities out here and press play on the music – it’s a NEW DAY, damnit!!!

And I appreciate that to some extent, because even if we do have entrenched, systematic, institutional undermining going on everyday, sometimes I like to transcend all of that crap for at least a minute or two and come up on the side of joyful expression! I am that I AM… bitches!!!

In case you didn’t know, there is a book that was written (fairly recently) called Happy For No Reason.

It was written in 2008, by Marci Shimoff. And no, she doesn’t stay in my neighborhood. But I’m attempting to move a little closer to her mental neighborhood. Because in it, she talks about raising your “happiness set point” and happiness habits like 1) focusing on gratitude 2) don’t believe everything that you think 3) incline your mind towards joy 4) see the world as your family, and 5) trust that it’s a friendly universe

Now, for instance, if your country is being bombarded everyday by all sorts of lethal, military industrial complex distributed weaponry, or you are starving to the point of your rib cage being exposed, you might find some of these focus habits a tad bit challenging. Well, that’s understandable. You probably can offer a book, or two, for Marci and the rest of us to read.

But many of us are not really in that dire of a situation. So then it doesn’t change the task before us. How can we transform this Game of Life, moment by moment, first as an expression of our innermost authentic spiritual essence? And then secondly, yet simultaneously, how can we work through the transformative, step by step, everyday encounter with Life while such incredible, systematically entrenched, backwardness, inequity and dysfunction is taking place all about us?

Pharrell told Oprah, “My colleague suggested I read The Alchemist, and it changed my whole life!! Because I realized all the people that conspired to get me to this place.” He further added that, “You have to be unafraid to dream. And then you have to be even more brave and gallant about blueprinting what you have envisaged.” The man’s creative capacities are not only unlimited, but honed by his self-development work to shape his magnificent journey. And through it shift some of what would be considered the Impossible, into the category of Possible.

His “New Black” definition, while unanchored in any real comprehension of culture, or communal involvement, still rang of passion and commitment to see a way, a possibility. What may have landed for many as a whimsy, bourgeois blind-sided, bohemian hip hop leprechaun-like, escape route from the hard core hammer of modern racism, is also the soul centered campaign of young visionary who perhaps could just use some further coat tail pullin’ and information upgrade… like most of us.

The universe has been busy exposing delusional coons over the last few weeks. First , Kobe Bryant revealed himself as the culturally Autistic narcissist we always suspected was lurking beneath his outsized atheletic ability (1), then Al Sharpton got outed by his past for being a failed drug dealer, FBI snitch , and GOP snake for hire (2), but just before we could squeal a collective James Brown-esque GOOD GAWD Y’ALL! Mr. Happy himself AKA Pharrell Williams reminded us yet again what happens when money fades a brother’s sense of blackness to a dull shade of gray (3).

Maybe it was the tear inducing, cathartic effect of snuggling in the droopy bosom of America’s misandrist media mogul mammy Oprah Winfrey. Or possibly those wack ass “Dudley-Do-Right had a yard sale” mountie hats are fitting a mite too tight on Skateboard P’s understandibly swollen head.

Whatever the case may be the nigga got on T.V. and blithely showed his fashionably stank ass. Apparently writing and producing songs that make white artisits sound black (Justin Timberlake, Daft Punk, Robin Thicke, Brittny Spears) qualifies the Neptune to remix a new version of that Neoliberal Boule classic “The Up By Yo’ Bootstraps Rap”. Peep homie’s funky definition of the “New black” :

“The New Black doesn’t blame other races for our issues. The New black dreams and realizes that it’s not pigmentation, it’s a mentality. And it’s either going to work for you, or work against you and you’ve got to pick which side you are going to be on”

Why thank you! my sartorially challenged friend. WIth the push of a philosophical mixing board fader Racism/White Supremacy is no longer a factor in the life of the “New Black”. Misguided, pesky, personal faux pas such as being routinely stopped and frisked , mass incarcerated, systemically denied justice, education, employment, and housing by a brutally efficient system administered with ruthless precision by people who classify themselves as white, can now be eradicated by a simple change of mind…

who knew?

Might I humbly suggest to Mr. Williams that he gather his “New Black” kindred and they form their very own money made, negro-topia and christen it Unkle Tomistan. An idyllic, paradisiacal, plantation colony where docile, compliant, super atheletes and musically gifted, non threatening, “happy” pick-a-ninnies can breed among themselves to produce a mutant race of mindless albeit hyper talented, genetically selected, Uber Schvartzes that will be harvested every twenty years or so by the entertainment-industrial complex. Just add money and subtract any semblance of historical context and before you know it, a hybrid strain of dancing lawn jockeys will be cranking out catchy lil’ ditties like “Happy”;

“Here come that news talking this and that, yeah, well, give me all you got and don’t hold it back, yeah, I should probably warn you, I’ll be just fine, yeah, no offense to you, don’t waste your time here’s why….because I’m happy”

And we all know if it’s one thing white folks just loooooove it’s happy niggers singing happy songs.

It’s time to stop singin’ and start swingin’

Seriously Y’all, we have to stop deifying these willfully naive, simple Simon-sellout-sons-of-bitches and start using social media to tar and feather their asses with our unified scorn until they figure out that the only way we are going to survive is if we all ride together for each other.

There has been a rash of response recently to the remarks Kobe Bryant made during an interview regarding his positioning on the Trayvon Martin case. During the interview with New Yorker writer Ben McGrath , when asked about his response to the Miami Heat’s solidarity pic wearing hoodies, he smugly stated…

“Smartly, I won’t react to something just because I’m suppose to, because I’m an African American. That argument doesn’t make any sense to me. So we want to advance as a society and as a culture, but, say, if something happens to an African American, we immediately come to his defense? Yet you want to talk about how far we have progressed as a society. Then you don’t jump to somebody’s defense just because they’e African American. You sit and you listen to the facts just like you would in another other situation, right? So I won’t assert myself. “

For a second, it seemed he was making a sensible point about reviewing the information and gathering the facts before getting caught up and leaping into an ill-founded solidarity stance. Nothing problematic about that; good advice. As a matter of fact, not just African Americans, but all people need to be re-presenced periodically to that insidious compulsion to tag in with the group think out of an unconsciousness need for a moment of belonging, validation and excitement. Critical consciousness often illudes many of us because we are not oriented to truly pause, think and evaluate for ourselves. So we just end up adding to the confusion when important issues really need our authentic reflection, response and contribution. So I say go Kobe, as far as that intent.

But then it clumsily wove into remarks which exposed the usual, unfortunate state of oblivion that too many African Americans fall prey to due to a total lack of understanding about the still deeply entrenched reality of institutionalized racism…

“So we want to advance as a society and as a culture, but, say, if something happens to an African American, we immediately come to his defense? Yet you want to talk about how far we have progressed as a society.” K. Bryant

That’s where the viral response kicked up heavy. Black folks weren’t tryin’ to hear it go too stupid from there, so they responded.

So let’s really take that apart and take a look at that with the discerning monocle. First, “we want to advance as a society and as a culture, but say, if something happens to an African American, we immediately come to his defense?” Well that’s almost an attempt at saying something very profound, except it’s totally self-contradictory.

He’s attempting to imply that advancing means we need to become “colorblind,” and “gender blind,” as he identifies himself.

Unfortunately, it happens to us all of the time. Some Negro will inevitably be attempting to “take the high road,” and transcend race under the auspice of “if we can all just push the suspend button on the race consciousness, it will all go away and racism will be instantly remedied… just like that!!” Obviously, from that perspective, the rest of us seem begrudging, bitter and hopelessly stuck in senseless cycles of enmity and disconnect. I’ve seen this scenario close up, even from loved ones. Folks really do want to be over it; the utter backwardness, diabolical design and unconscionable pain of racism.

But it doesn’t quite work that way Mr Bryant. It’s not as easy as it is for you to sink a forty foot jumper over a scrappy double team and claim yet another triumph to your history making tally.

Actually, the jumpers ain’t goin down like they use to either… or even the jump for that matter. But that’s another story.

The fact is black people, African Americans, Nubians, Asiatics, descendants from Akebulan and all the other designations to be considered (some of you won’t know what the hell that was about, but don’t worry – lol!), will never alter the entrenched fortress of institutionalized racism until 1) we understand what actually constitutes it, and then 2) make that information clear to all human groups that will support whatever forms of mobilization against it (so there’s much less confusion), as well as 3) making it clear to those who won’t support mobilization against it (dismantling, eradication, etc.), so that they know the fog of confusion and misinformation about it is losing it’s effect.

And what constitutes institutionalized racism is not just the ideology of racism (thought forms of superiority), but the institutional arrangement itself which ensures the domination and continued implementation of policies which cycle the dominant group right within their power position.

Negros just haven’t been taught what racism actually is, let alone the general population. Knowledge about the nature of such a system would be counter to it’s existence.

No, we need very intelligent people to be totally confused about for it to work. And like it or not, Kobe is a very intelligent person. So are so many of us.

But intelligent people are susceptible to, and succumb often to believing that they know more than they actually know. This is because they are so familiar with their own sharpness and intelligence (I should say we, because I’m right in that group too in the general sense).

But racism is not George Zimmerman hating Trayvon, or even viewing him as a “nigger.” It is the institutional system that has an entrench value system and code of enforcement that holds the life of Trayvon Martin as less valuable, and therefore less important, than that of a white kid. Therefore, the institutionally exacted penalty for killing a black kid walking home and committing no crime was zero! That’s racism folks!!! – the institutional system. Please work on getting that clear so we won’t go around the stupid-go-round too many unnecessary times with useless opinions and conjecture.

So all of this wanna be transcendent, enlightened, attempt at evolutionary brilliance and thought leadership by Kobe, and many others from our community, along with just the sheer desire to beam a smile and be one with everybody, ends up landing in the day to day matrix where entrenched institutional racism pervades, as anything but all that.

As if every time something “happens” to an African American, we alljump to their defense! Wait, Negro, are you crazy?? There are innumerable things that “happen” to black folks everyday; getting shot at, assaulted, robbed, discriminated against, unjustly penalized, harshly treated, called racially degrading terms; by whatever group, including often our own. Everybody knows this. And everybody also knows, we don’t have the time to respond, even as a fraction of a community, to 99.999% of it. So what is Kobe talking about?

Trayvon Martin’s situation wasn’t just another case of something “happening” to an African American. It was an appalling travesty of justice with the target being a black teenager that easily could have been anybody’s child, including Kobe’s, getting profiled, attacked and then murdered. It wasn’t some random “something happens to an African American, we immediately come to his defense.” Nobody came to my defense the other day when I was called “nigger.” I dealt with it in the way I dealt with it and kept it moving.

So, bottom line – we don’t need any more institutionally blind, cultural blind, and in effectsocio-politically blind, superheros who are really masquerading as enlightened, oh so insightfully transcendent, “color blind, gender blind,” superheros. Come on Kobe; you are a hero bro!!! Hustle up and catch up to the reality of this level of the game baby. We need you. We need each other on board. Blessed

As far as weather you are a Kendrick fan, or not, it’s really besides the point. There are obviously so many, justifiably, riding this cat’s hood ornate, razor sharp, supremely artistic, dual hemispherically blessed, poetic toolery, that I don’t think it’s necessary to go near that direction for the focus of this article. In fact, I don’t even qualify to write about that because I do not have the depth of grasp to articulate what the Real is on this dude from the perspective of true MC’in. You would need someone who is either a very gifted, veteran microphone master, or a knighted hip hop enthusiast, or both to attempt that task.

Instead, I want to address Mr Lamar in the context of him being a herald, an actual pragmatic prayer to the hip hop gods, answered. I should quickly follow that I use the reference of him being a prayer answered, referring to an unconscious activity taking place in our collective communal psyche. Nobody (that most of us would know) consciously prayed for a lyrical savant to be reborn from that old seething burial ground of the early, Bastard of the Party hatched, crack-sack turned magic corporate genie lamp, global gangsta rap mania mastermind group, NWA. But the fact is, whether you just kinda’ like rap music, loathe it or live and breathe it through your temples, we have all gotta experience it. It is the dominant musical art form of our era.

So, of course, we would unconsciously dream up an authentic, west coast, dysfunction ridden suburb fertilized, mission enriched, new hip hop voice to save us from all these other low Soul barometer pushers.

By “unconsciously dream up,” I mean the energy of our collective psychic field (as oblivious as we tend to be with it) called him forth, in the same way other timely human voices were called forth throughout various periods of our human evolution. We are in need, at the deep level of our communal Soul, for a voice that supports our own growth and evolution through this most complex and challenging period of it. Beyond a personal affinity for his witty stylization, many would easily concur with the statement, “Thank God for Kendrick.” And many hip hop devotees are obviously thankful to the hip hop gods (archetypes) for Kendrick. Hip hop needs it’s renewal and rejuvenation when the dynamism starts to die off to mediocrity.

But this is not to knock anyone else, even if I did slightly knock almost everyone else with the “low Soul barometer pushers” reference. It’s just that it is what it is, to be perhaps not so articulate… but then again… basically accurate. The process has to just has to cook up in one’s Self all at once in a given period. At first Kendrick was probably like any ol’ kid from the hood, cradling far fetched fantasies of being an accomplished rap gladiator with unshakable fame. But somewhere along the line, something happened in his evolutional process. He started to grow as if possessed by a daemon, while becoming one divinely blessed with a supreme gift, a talent of immense proportion. We all know it is said that, “to whom much is given, much is expected.”

And so you can’t just be a mere fledging MC, or a soda pop brand endorsement celebrating, umpteen bottles full a’ bub poppin, club rotation rocker, or a stranger to true, existentially wrenching, social struggle… or the most paltry candidate for ancestral communication and think that you will have any positively defining impact for a people as back against both the virtual and concrete walls as African Americans are.

We need, at this point, the whole kitchen sink (plumbing included), to use a familiar old cliche, as far as events and voices to come forth that create a jolting impact upon our state of affairs (in the same way a seemingly lifeless body can be shocked back into a vital state with the proper equipment). But we can’t seeanything if you don’t have a programmer make it dance on the screen with flashy graphics twitching on a blog page or touch screen, or at least have it whoosh through the twitterverse to a few hundred thousand awaiting palms. This is because we are submerged fully into the digital era without a coherent broadcast or voice addressing our state of affairs. And therefore, absent the voices, our community is more disconnected then ever; though paradoxically, we have more gadgetry to connect with than ever.

So when the still freshly ascended MC opens the song Hiii Powerwith, “Visions of Martin Luther staring at me/ Malcolm X put a hex on my future someone catch me/I’ve fallen victim to a revolutionary song/ The Serengeti’s clone back to put you backstabbers back on your spinal bone,” (if we’re paying attention) we will get it’s the realm of the ancestors choosing to speak through him. Why, or how, would a young Compton, street shake n baked brotha, barely out of his teens, have “visions of Martin Luther staring” at him???

“Malcolm X put a hex on my future, someone catch me,” Kendrick simultaneously pleads and leads. But most ain’t gonna catch him because our listening system is almost tone deaf to that depth of the vibration of Soul. Young Kendrick is like Gil Scott with an iPhone. They’re all hexing and yelling through him; Marcus Garvey, Fred Hampton… and oh yeah, the…

Stupid, for those of you who are hip hop era, culture code challenged, in this context means gone to point of being outrageously activated. Kendrick is psychically activating in an outrageous way, to say the very least. Such an outrageous level of activation is exactly what is called for in today’s state of affairs where even with a black president, black males still make up the majority prison population (yet are only 6% of the total population); where we still have the highest unemployment rates in every category, and are still glimpsing the downfall of campus after campus of our treasured HBCUs, while across town the trickle of our population at mainstream campuses gradually drops off further. A trend of outrageous activationism would be truly useful about now, a la Huey Newton meets Harriet Tubman meets Imhotep hangin’ out with Morpheus.

If but only for the execution of a small slice of his repertoire, which directs straight to the communal wounds from repression and institutionalized racism, the whole of Kendrick Lamar is prayer answered.

You see, here at Afro Alchemist, we deal with the transformational process. In Alchemy, turning the lead into gold requires a fundamental shifting not only at the molecular level, but even further at the sub-atomic level. It can even supersede form and mandate a shift at the Principlelevel. In all of these cases the quo must be bypassed (you may know it as the status quo). The core dynamics which create and constitute the status quo must be explored, deconstructed, re-registered within the greater context, then traversed beyond in Consciousness.

So we don’t really have much blog space for non-game changers in this context (other than a quick riff). And even though digital space is basically infinite, we still don’t have the space! Because bullshit is infinite too.

I don’t even know Brotha Kendrick personally (though I wouldn’t be mad if I could say he was a Nephew or some relation), but the plot is thick out here, to say the least, and few can even hit the damn target period, much less get near the bull’s eye. Yet all of these events and forces are culminating in this moment such that something radically special is peeking forth with the arrival of a true dynamic, artistic visionary. A grimy, Thelonius ghettatonic microphone monkster is in the cosmic oven, with the creative temp right at around 375 degrees.

We don’t quite know how this will all unfold, which way he will turn. Or, if perhaps it will be in multiple directions at once like his predecessor, the mighty warrior Pac. But Kendrick seems to have a very humble, zealous, calm, almost suspiciously wise smile about it all. And he’s figured out how to really fuck with that remote.

Admittedly, I’m a little late to the Kendrick party. Cats from my generation of hip hop heads are loathe to dick ride the latest rhyme slinger due to the code we came up under: you don’t jock something or someone just because the masses rush it like ants on candy, especially if you wasn’t down with him from day one. That was some front artist poser shit that niggas would quickly clown you about. It just wasn’t done. Before you co- signed an M.C with your imprimatur and cold hard cash, You had to be thorough with your due diligence which meant going back and listening to early work, 12 inch singles, features, mix tapes, etc. and then if the artist was really dope you got down with them.

My oldest daughter first tried to put me up on Kendrick Lamar back in 2011 when his Section 80 joint started echoing out of Compton and into the ears of next generation L.A. hip hop Aficionados. They embraced him as the embodiment of the young black Southern Cali zeitgeist the way my generation had locked onto N.W.A twenty five years earlier. Because my daughter’s early life was spent crawling around milk crates full of vinyl and watching her daddy exercise his love of cutting up James Brown breaks on the one and two’s she knew the real from Fugazi , so I respected her opinion enough to check my inner curmudgeon and bend an ear towards the nascent beat griot. And even though my well seasoned ears got silver hair growing out of them, I still keep try to keep my channel open to new iterations of the muse. However, I honestly wasn’t feeling Kendrick upon my first few exposures.

Looking back I can see how my obsessive tendencies had me preoccupied with the shit I was vibing to at the time-Southern trap music, Lupe Fiasco, M.F. Doom, Kool Keith, Flying Lotus, Mad Lib, Little brother, underachievers, Dilla, etc. Combine that with the fact that I’ve always been a cat wh was drawn to a record by its beat. So unless an M.C. was riding a hot track like 26’s on a box Chevy he was going to have a hard time holding my attention on the strength of bars alone.

Go on and lump me in with the rest of the old heads and our love of obscure D.J. Premier samples, precise cuts, scratches, seamless blends, Pete Rock tracks and rhyme scientists like Rakim Allah, Guru, Kane and Cube.

I thought I had aged out of the new school and its Dixie dope boy fantasy world of candy paint, purple drank, endless kilos, weed, mollies, big booty hoes, money and Black Liberace in Versace narrative. The only thing that kept me halfway engaged was what would come to be known as the “trap beat”. Once again the 808 sub woofing deep in the heart of my love kept me faithful to H.E.R. I even grew to appreciate the southern style of rapping with its bluesy, molasses slow flow drawling over swamp water bass kicks, AK47 staccato cymbals and snares cracking like plantation whips on a nigga’s ass. Kinda reminded me of early L.A. hip hop like Rodney O and Joe Cooley , Mix master Spade and King Tee .Yeah, Kendrick was ill no doubt, but he wasn’t rattling my crown and root chakras….yet.

I waded into the deep end of Kendrick’s sea of moral complexity submerging beneath the beat on “swimming pools”. It was my introduction to a kaleidoscopic multiverse of infinite grey areas where “every shut eye ain’t sleep and every goodbye ain’t gone”. A space where a good kid in a MAAD city pimp limps the gamut between a young brother actualizing his potential for genius or getting mobbed onto the set for a life of ….you can guess the rest. That shit is age old in L.A. and every brother from low riders to skateboarders overstands it. Drive past Inglewood Park Cemetery ‘round midnight and listen to your dead remind you to “sing about me”. I swear not a Monday morning goes by when my body ain’t stuck in 110 south traffic , but my mind is day dreaming of raking up leaves under ”money trees”. Crown and root chakras fully vibrational.

So now I’m wide open. Still the inner Public Enemy in me that ninja creeps in broad daylight through a maze of structural hate barriers fiends for a soundtrack that mirrors my struggle.

I know way too many niggas hustling hand to mouth to be rocked to sleep by hyperreal superthug fairytales with video ho happy endings. The true “D” boy lifestyle is really about scuffling for 25 to 30 racks a year by desperadoes trying hard not to spend the rent money to re –up while wrestling with the question “what’s the point of surviving if you can’t live?”

Maybe it’s racial, but I need my hip hop to speak to my condition.

Maybe it’s generational, but I look to beats and rhymes to function as combat hymns ministering to my spirit with weaponized information.

So what up Kendrick? You got something in your dope sack for me Playa?

One day whilst slow roasting Nicki Minaj’s prodigious ass over an open fire with my renaissance homie E.Ray, he offered up a Kendrick joint to cleanse our palates. “ My nigga have you heard Hii power?” Tempted by the prospect of inhaling some fresh lines of vintage uncut Kendrick I Youtubed the track and got froze instantly;

“…so get up off that slave ship/ build your own pyramids/ write your own hieroglyphs”/ “…everyday we fight the system/ we fight the system, never like the system/ we been down for too long / but that’s alright”/ ”… grown men never should bite they tongues/ unless you eatin’ pussy that smell like a stale plum…./ and everything on T.V. just a figment of imagination/ I don’t want a plastic nation/ dread shit like a Haitian/ while you muthafuckas waiting/ ill be off the slave ship building my own pyramids, wrIting my own hieroglyphs”.

DAMN. If those lines weren’t dope enough to illuminate all a niggas chakra wheels and make ‘em spin counterclockwise, the youngsta laces the track with an Orson Welles sound bite at the 1:59 mark that embeds a subliminal context for the rhymes. Check it: “He is sort of a gangster you know, because this is a gangster story, but a gangster with a difference, because this is a gangster with a conscience”. Now go back, scrape the mirror and freeze your gums with his references to Marcus Garvey, Huey Newton, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, Bobby Seale, and Martin Luther King. Then rethink the “thug Life” punctuation that closes the track. Hidden gems and cloaked wisdom penetrate the pineal gland and soak subtly into your cranium releasing piping hot serotonin. Like I said, every Super “Heru” needs a theme song.

In our illusory 21st century post racial “winter in America” it’s cold as a muthafucka and once again we are under siege by a hostile nation of blond blood thirsty polar cave beasts intent on our total destruction. Its wartime and We need our combat hymns. Back in the day we had Curtis Mayfield to help us “keep on pushing”(60’s) then Bob Marley picked up the torch and led us further on our “Exodus” (70’s) followed by Public Enemy who implored us to “fight the power” (80’s).

Somewhere along the journey , we became content with being fed crumbs from the corners of the mouths of bougeois “spokesniggers” who gorged themselves on Massa’s left overs.

That shits done. Never y’all mind , the ancestors shall not be mocked much longer. They have sent the muse among us once again with new combat hymns being channeled by brothers like Kendrick Lamar with the remote in his hand. And this time the revolution will be televised straight to your consciousness without commercial interruption.

Well, er uh… first of all, I want to state that the tone of the “Ho, Sit Down!” piece could not only be described as direct, but could also be interpreted as somewhat inflammatory. I mean using phrases like “cash dummies,” and referring to her latest virtual wave shaking release as an “odious stank ho sing along,”… I mean, is that necessary? Obviously we can identify Mr. MF Jarrett as being somewhat disturbed about a mere pop music poster campaign, harmlessly intended to make some type of vague association with a recognized historical African American leadership symbol during the month of February (which happens to be what we have been allotted as “Black History Month,” while the dominant group politely takes the other eleven). I believe Ms. Minaj had already come out and stated in response to so much, somehow unanticipated backlash, that she didn’t even come up with it herself; it was just an idea sent to her by an associate (or something of this nature). I believe she apologized, owned up and recanted.

So I mean, obviously, there seems to be an issue that is still eating at Mr. Jarrett and several of our community members about what they view as the utter idiocy, the utter audacity, the utter utteracity of this prevalent element in young, Afrocentric, pop culture. To the point where Mr Jarrett has taken it upon himself, through this Afro Alchemist vehicle, to stand up and unequivocally state, “Ho sit down!!” Now… I don’t know that this would be the approach that say, recognized communal voices like Bill Cosby, Tom Joyner, Alfred Sharpton, T.D Jakes, Tavis Smiley or a Jesse Jackson would take. But on the other hand, they probably wouldn’t object to the request if she were to at the very least, momentarily comply… “Ho, sit down!!”

What I’m getting at, is that while Mr. MF Jarrett’s stance seems to be quite affrontive in nature, there are also quite a few among us (quiet as it shouldn’t be kept) who harbor the same basic sentiment. But they would never state it in such a fashion. However, this is all a matter of context and language… or thought coding. What occurs as shocking expression to some is often just matter of factness to others. I don’t think Mr. Jarrett meant “Ho, go and meditate,” “Ho, collect yourself,” or “Ho, do a little more research before you open your mouth expressing your thought process.” I think he just meant simply what he said: “Ho, sit down!”… plain and simple. Take a class on your glorious, magnificent history and culture, if you find yourself able to (with such an intensely busy schedule). And there you can easily find a seat to just quietly sit down and learn, absorb.

Or, perhaps he meant symbolically to sit down; as far as poppin’ off at the mouth with subject matter dealing with and requiring cultural and historical intelligence (obviously she has a high Hood drama IQ). That could have easily been where Kody was taking it. And perhaps, or should I say obviously, he felt it was time. I mean this is the thing that I do get, even if I may miss a lot of other stuff periodically; people can only tolerate so much stupidity. And then it just becomes outright super-ridiculous, ratchet-based retardation. Are people supposed to just inactively sit in a struggle class, cement ceiling cycled, prime time tabloid network flooded stupor waiting for Frederick Douglas, Marcus Garvey and ML King, Jr. to end up on “Lookin Ass NIgga” remix promos?? Hey yeah, what about throwing Jesus up there? Then changing the title from “Lookin Ass Nigga,” to “Seein’ Ass NIgga.” Oh, wait a minute. But now you’re offended?? Don’t tell me … that’s taking it TOO FAR!!??

Oh, I see how some of your thought codes and programs work. As long as it was Brotha Malcolm, you would’ve just asked them to turn the music down after 10:30 on a week night? Well, I think what Mr. Jarrett and others are suggesting is, it’s already gone waaay tooo far!

So, while I must admit I like me some sticky-icky-icky, big hydro-booty Nicki, and the ever slizzippin’ Weezy, along with my boy the ever butter-ballin’ cross-over, Toronto flaggin’, Oy Vey gangsta rap prince, Dreezy (I appreciate all of their creative genius), I also get that their skills extend only as far as a certain limited neurological and pop cultural domain. Once you get to another level of cultural, spiritual and communal consciousness, they don’t even show up on the radar. So… it is what it is. Somebody buy them a small case of the autobiography of Malcolm books, just so they can keep a couple with them on the tour bus and their private planes while they travel the world over, rockin’ millions in the crowds to their groundbreaking, mental liberation encoded, 2014 Black History month release – Lookin Ass NIggaaahhhh!!!!

Maybe it’s me, but February 2014 seems to be the wrong month for starting shit with Black folks, particularly this week. See, as I sit and write this on the 21st of February, it’s the 49th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X and six days after the armed racist coward Michael Dunn was slapped on the wrist and subliminally patted on the back by white America for murdering Jordan Davis in cold blood. This symbolic dick slapping of our tear streaked faces comes a mere eight months after we were forced to watch the slow motion post mortem lynching of our loved one Trayvon Martin. And in keeping with the barbaric tradition of extracting maximum pain from its victims, the malevolent hand of white supremacy poured salt into our open psychic wound with viciously timed interview of a smugly triumphant George Zimmerman (an interview conducted by a black man, just in case a drop of piss missed landing directly into our eyes). As I watched boy George’s mealy mouthed, puffy faced visage stare back at me from a flat screened 1080p window into a perverse bizzaro world, I could ‘a swore I heard him say “Whatchu lookin at, lookin’ ass nigga?…don’t ever forget your lives mean less than nothing to us…lookin’ ass nigga…we can, have and shall continue to kill you at will and ain’t a damn thing you can do about it…whatchu’ lookin at, lookin ass nigga?” Which got me to thinking about our darling Nicky Minaj, and her latest ratchet anthem “Lookin’ Ass Nigga,” with its blasphemous cover art.

“Aye, yo Slim! Birdman! Weezy! Y’all need to put your bottom bitch Nicky under pimp arrest, cuz she outta pocket”. That, no doubt, is what Detroit Red would have told the cash money simps just before giving Ms. Minaj a swift, back hand five knuckle pimp salute for disrespecting the sainted image of his higher self, El Hajj Malik Shabazz, commonly known to the 85% as Malcolm X. You see Cash Dummy…uh…I mean Young Money, the ancestors are still ice grilling your monkey asses for taking the name of Emmitt Till in vain last year. It comes as no surprise that you culturally tone deaf niggas couldn’t or wouldn’t learn from your mistake because here y’all come again in the New Year looking for a new tear to tattoo on your etch-a-sketched faces.

Weezy, who’s idea was it to send the Bleached Barbie hi-tech hood ratchet on a campaign for some spare change using brother Malcolm’s image to generate controversy in place of publicity for her odious stank ho sing along? Have you no shame my nigga? ….wait, don’t answer that. Naw, it couldn’t have been you. Everybody know you stay waaay too slizzard off that sizzurp to be that Machiavellian.

Nope, the nefarious concept of plastering the image of “our own shining black prince” on a song dissing black men, made by a black woman, timed for release during black history month had to have sprung from deep within wicked core of a mind well versed in sowing seeds of self-hatred in its victims and reaping cash rewards from their creativity. A mind connected to an unseen hand known by its bloody finger prints the world over, infamous for stealing culture, switching the serial numbers and selling it right out from under its creators with a fresh coat of sparkling, pearl white paint.

Hmmm…..I smell the noxious odor of sulfur wafting up from the euro inferno. Behold! Yakub has struck again. Fresh from his workshop in the ninth ring of hell slithers a formerly unknown, skinny, flat-bootied, brown-skinned female rapper with a so-so flow.

ABRACADABRA!…presto change a ho…there she go: tweaked to twerk with her over inflated Hindenburg of an ass, de-melanated skin and Splenda-frosted, cotton candy colored clown wigs. Meet the Bride of Wankenstein. A Black Barbie pre-programmed to lead a thirsty horde of pussy popping “THOTS” on yet another journey of vapid consumerist stupidity….Ladies and Germs, give a tepid round of applause to Nicky Minaj.

Now I don’t wanna give you the impression that I’m a ho hater. I know they got to eat, so tricks got to treat. Nicki is just doing like Too Short said and trying to “get in where she fit in”. I’m not mad at her for that. Get your money ma. But its 2014 and GAT DAMMIT its time for some non-”blurred’ lines to be clearly drawn around this muthafucka. So from here on out certain aspects of our culture shall remain pristine, inviolate and unsullied by the filthy hands of short-sighted hustlers. Like Onyx said way back in ’93, “BACDAFUCUP”!!! Stand clear of Malcolm X. His image, likeness, words, spirit and memory are one and the same in the hearts of millions of his ideological offspring from Compton to Cuba and must be steadfastly defended against liars, thieves, infidels, harlots and whoremongers. And that goes for anybody from Manning Marable to Nicki Minaj.

If our brother were with us to have witnessed the birth, blossoming, fruition, co-optation, sale and final destruction of our greatest cultural resource since Jazz, he would have rained down a hell fire of righteous condemnation upon the nappy heads of those responsible. He, no doubt, would have blocked the sale of Hip Hop on the installment plan to the Jimmy Iovines and Edgar Bronfmans by a few brothers out for their own personal gain at the expense of the rest of us. Old beefs would have been set aside and he would’ve drawn upon the teachings of his mentor, that little man from Georgia, The Hon. Elijah Muhammad. Brother Malcolm surely would have told us to remain focused on doing for self and the importance of practicing group economics with our newly mined treasure of furious beats and rhymes.

Companies like Sugar Hill, Def Jam, Ruthless, Suave House, No Limit, Rap-a-Lot, and Death Row might have remained in our control and the billions they generated would’ve circulated throughout our nationwide hoods many times over, creating jobs, generating incomes, and lifting some of us up high enough to transfer some real wealth inter-generationally down the line the way Jews and Asians do. Slowly and surely we would’ve been better off collectively. Instead, once again we fell for the okey doke, like monkeys grasping at shiny objects, selling ourselves short for Bentleys, Beamers and Benzes, man-made pink diamonds and Air Jordans by the tractor trailer truck load.

Yes sir, the O.G. Hustler, Detroit Red would’ve laced our boots up tight with game and helped us avoid a year like 2013 where:

Not one black artist reached the top of the Billboard Top 100 chart – a first in its 55 year history.

The top spots on the Hip Hop / R&B charts were held by Justin Timberlake, Robin Thicke, Macklemore and Eminem.

Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines”, a thinly veiled knock off of Marvin Gaye’s classic, “Got to Give It Up” got played 746,633 times in over 180 radio markets. That’s an average of 2,053 times a day for a whole year.

That’s right, and the rotten cherry on top of this shit sundae was Kendrick Lamar’s seminal debut masterpiece being shunted to the side at the Grammies in favor of “Wacklemore’s” calculated love letter to the LGBT community….oh, but I forgot, gay is the new black. Ain’t that right, Nicki?

They stole Rock and Roll, but we sold them Hip Hop and R&B. We can’t blame the white man if few avaricious pseudo-goons and artificial Barbie Ratchets sell their birth right for a bag of shekels to the temple money changers. So be it. Painful lesson number 4080 re-learned once again. Do what you do. Your children’s children will have royalty-check sized holes in their pockets; that’s your choice. But keep your greedy hooks off the legacy of Malcolm X. He belongs to us.

Sometimes an epiphany can creep up on you in the damndest places, usually when you are doing something as mundane as standing online at a burger joint, in this case Master Burger on Vernon and Western, smack dab in the smoggy heart of South Central. After placing my order for a double chili cheese mad cow disease to go , I was lounging with my head on a swivel and my ears turned way up because it was a shade after dark and shit pops off quick in this part of my city. To my left, seated on a worn out graffiti scarred lunch table are two serious O.G.’S who are about my age. I can tell how old they are because of the gear they rock: dark indigo blue Levi 501’s starched stiff with razor sharp creases, sparkling white leather Nikes laced over and under, 3x white tees pressed neat with wife beaters underneath. Their clean shaven baldies barely conceal the receding hairlines that reassert themselves with silver bristles of new growth. As we scan each other on the low in that “lemme size this nigga up just in case” kinda way that is second nature to black men , our eyes meet and we nod a wordless “wassup playa”. As we complete our customary risk assesment, a noisy pack of Black and Mexican skate rats comes clattering up the craggy side walk. They carve the pavement with an effortless, ragged grace as they pass a blunt between themselves. These kids are definitely on their own shit for real: skinny jeans that sag below their asses, beanies pulled back over their heads like Santa’s elves, dreads, snug fitting band T- shirts emblazoned with the logos of old school punk groups they probably don’t even listen to, and feet covered in shabby slip on vans, chucks, and old school addidas. The scratchy hum of their collective wheels rolling off into the descending night is rudely punctuated by a sudden blast of raspy cackles from just over my left shoulder.

The O.G’S are weighing in on what we have just seen “Cuzz , how the fuck a nigga gon’ be hard riding a goddamn skateboard?” the smaller of the two poses this rhetorical question to no one in particular as his comrade shakes his bullet shaped dome in righteous disapproval. I take up the question in my own mind and smoke it over my cerebral coals as I scarf down my burger, season salted fries and super sized cup of bubbly, strawberry flavored carcinogen. “I gotta quit eatin’ this shit” I say to myself as I inhale the last sacrilegious bite of my ghetto manna from heaven. Then it hit me like a Marvin Hagler right hook to the jaw…..these youngstas have said “fuck being hard and all the negativity that comes with it”. Damn , now that’s some revolutionary shit to live by in the heart of the Rollin’ 30s, 40’s, 60’s or any other hood in America. “why there was a time when…..” i hush the thought when I realize I sound like the 50 year old veteran of South Central that I am. Still the back door has been left unlocked and the question arises “How did my generation of black men get caught up in trying to be so damn hard in the first place”?

Coming up as a four eyed, scarecrow skinny, uncoordinated, bookish stepson of an upper echelon coke dealer on the west side of South Central L.A. in the 70’s was no Crip walk through Saint Andrews park. In the post civil rights, post Slausons , post Panther , nascent Super Fly- Mack-Willie Dynamite-Sweetback-Black Cesar-Shaft-Black Belt Jones-Supernigga era an updated paradigm of Black Manhood was being downloaded into our collective afros by two precocious mad scientists of uber thuggery , Stanley “tookie” Williams and Raymond Washington.

The deep impact these two hoodlum savants had on every black boy in the city was immediate and visceral. Even if you wasn’t Crippin’ you better have that mindset, otherwise you were going to have problems. And the ice cold nucleus of that mindset was hardness. To us, to be hard meant to never back down, to hold your own, and above all it meant you had to be brave in the presence of danger. You didn’t necessarily have to win, but you damn sure had to fight. Much blue ink has been sprayed across the pages of recent history about the sociopathic progeny of the c-walking Romulus and Remus, Tookie and Raymond, but little has been said by those of us who actually lived alongside these marauding renegades and their rampaging horde of angel dusted feral lost boys.

If you were young, black and male at the dawn of the “me” era, you were not at a loss for larger than life heroes.

Muhammad Ali taught us how to talk shit and back it up

Bruce Lee showed us that you didn’t have to be the biggest to be the baddest

Evel Knievel made us believe that we weren’t really living unless we faced death every once in awhile.

Each one of these men ; a skinny brother from Louisville who learned how to fight after being jacked for his bike, a quiet Chinese dude from San Francisco who spoke with his feet and hands, and a poor white boy from Montana who defied gravity because it was in his way. Each of them taught us that to be a man meant having what we called “heart”, which we defined as facing whatever or whomever challenged you, no matter the odds, even if you were afraid, and to act in spite of your fear.

Our heroes would inject us with their palpable courage; inspiring backyard boxing matches with tube socks wrapped around young fists, Enter the Dragon reenactments fought with homemade nunchuks crafted from broken broom handles, rusty nails and frayed pieces of jump rope, and side walk stunt shows we put on by jumping our Schwinn Stingrays over improvised ramps made from rickety plywood and milk crates weighted down with bricks. Busted lips, chipped teeth, cranial lacerations, and bruised testicals were the achy medals of valor we often won in pursuit of honor, pride and respect.

Our emulation of these unlikely icons was due in no small part to the absence of our fathers, uncles, and granddads in our daily lives. We, the sons of the civil rights striver generation were handed a house key and told heat up a T.V. dinner while Mom worked for the city, the county, or the state by day and went to school at night. And Pops either got shown the door by the Family Court system or disappeared in a vapor of recrimination, excessive indulgence of his appetites or shackled deep inside the belly of the American Gulag. Meanwhile, on the other side of the 405 fwy. White boys were going through some of the same shit minus the economic insecurity, crime and police related misery. Of our generation it would be written:

“Boys have had to attempt to develop a masculine identity in the absence of a continuous and ongoing personal relationship with their fathers, uncles, or other male elders….the boy’s major source of instruction about the masculine derives from the cultural images of masculinity promulgated by the masculine mystique….for generations boys and young men faced with father absence have had no alternative but to turn to the mystiques destructive dogma as the primary teacher of what it means to be a man” – (pg. 40, Masculine Mystique)

Ali, Bruce Lee, and Evel knievel those cats were down as four flat tires underwater, but they did’nt live on our block. You never saw them knocking niggas teeth out with one punch at the skating rink or throwing a football an entire city block , or hitting the three wheel motion while busting a left onto Crenshaw off of Slauson ,clowning for the kids on the bus stop headed to the Fox Hills mall on a Sunday afternoon.

These feats of ‘Hood super heroics were performed by our own street legends. Ghetto Stars with ringing names like Mad Dog, Big Lurch, Monkey Man, Buddah…these brothers forged a cast iron mold black manchildren have been literally dying to fit into for nearly half a century.

One thing you’ll notice about many of the roughest neighborhoods on the west side of South Central is how clean and quiet they are during the day and most of the night. Lawns kept neat, fresh coats of pastel stucco on Spanish style houses with bright orange terra cotta tile roofs, and driveways lined with late model car notes testifying to the benefits of getting up early every day the lord sends and going to work. Behind these beautiful facades lived many boys who lie awake at night listening to the hypnotic sound of police sirens singing in the street backed by the helicopter blades steady beat as the lyrics whisper “……get it fast like those niggas up at the park…..the ones your momma told you to stay away from, but your sister- cousin- aunty and the girls in your class all find so irresistible.”

You seen him ‘round…..44 inch chest, 28 inch waist, arms like chiseled black steel anacondas. Hair permed and set on blue magnetic rollers. Always seems to have a fat knot of cash money in the pockets of his heavy starched Levi’s that fall crisply across the tops of his spit shined Stacy Adams “bisquits”…. You seen him ‘round

…. He ain’t no buster like the man next door raising two kids with his wife on dual school teacher’s salaries. He ain’t no mark like the black cop who lives up the block and drives a corvette. He ain’t even like your uncle who works at the post office and has that big ass Winnebego that he keeps parked on the side of his house and drives down to Louisiana every summer.

He is flyer than them, cooler than them, he is HARDER than them…..and even more than that, he is who YOU want to be….the men fear him and the women want to fuck him….You seen him ‘round. Gliding thru the hood , skatin’ on triple gold Daytons in the middle of the day, while the tricks are at work, he is at play, free as the breeze, one half a cloven hoof ahead of the pigs…..You seen him ‘round.

The Hard nigga archtype incarnated in human form on the day the first black man said “to hell with this shit”, threw down his cotton sack and strolled off the plantation with a slow, deliberate, stagger lee swagger that begged to be fucked with, but seldom was. A rebel stride perfected in a roiling, red hot cauldron of rage, fired by the broken pieces of deferred dreams shattered against an alabaster wall of irrational, implacable, impenetrable blind hatred built long before he was ever born. With nothing to lose besides a life only worth 3/5ths that of a white man, no one to notice, and even less to care about, he is free from fear and gives no fucks. He parries the blows of time, refutes the lies of history, and greets society’s merciless indifference with two bumpy knuckled, balled up fists ready to bomb first. Best believe it’s finna’ be some , cuz he gon’ start some…. From the jump….off top….out the gate….coming from the shoulders throwing boulders like a mighty black Hercules.

In every generation he manifests….a spectral presence in the ‘hood. If you were there, you felt him. Bumpy Johnson…Frank Matthews…Tootie Reese…Felix Mitchell…BIg Meech…Like a wise , winged serpent he spits game without uttering a word to ears unfit to hear what is being sold and never told. In the park, on the street, in the back of the club, under the red light at the house party…. his visage shines like a mystic black sun illuminating the shadowy left hand path of back alley shortcuts to a hyper masculine paradise of pistols, money, hoes, clothes and Cadillac doors……and the penitentiary. No question , to come off the porch and run with the wolves you got to buy an overpriced one way ticket to the felonious life….and you bet’ not cry neither cuz the only tears in this life are made out of hollow point lead, shards of broken glass, and warm blood.

Those of us who lived in South Central L.A. east or west of Vermont or further south down into Watts , Compton, Carson and Long Beach , we had to come pass him on our way to finding our identities as men. Some of us stopped, looked and then kept it moving while others jumped in his car and rode off. Either way you were somehow shaped by the experience. Our concept of manhood always rocked up to be about being ready to die fighting to take and defend what is ours be it real, imagined, mental or spiritual. Somewhere in our DNA the hard nigga climbed onto the helix and hid in the cut. Willie Bosket or O.J. Simpson , mega square or super thug , push us hard enough and he will show up, often to someone’s detriment…..usually our own.

And so it went for at least one hundred years or more. Lives lived out in bright, beautiful flames of spectacular crashes or magnificent phoenix risings. Steady pushing against the limitations on who and what we could be , definitions of manhood blindly accepted by wide eyed boys too young to make life choices we would have to pay for as grown ass men. Often you can find us roaming through life with burnt fingers trying to guess where tomorrow’s consequences may be hiding behind today’s decisions.

Then at the dawn of the new millinium a subtle, almost imperceptible shift began. The youngstas began to quietly expand the palette of colors they created their identities from. The nihilistic spectrum of do or die , life constraining , soul killing options represented by the hard nigga, noble suffer head, humble wage slave and their polar dopplegangers the dancer/ rapper/ athelete/ entertainer was being expanded, digitized , sampled , remixed, chopped and screwed by some kids wearing big , black framed nerd glasses , riding skate boards and wearing skinny jeans. These kids were quicker to bang on computer keyboards than they were other black boys. Some of them read Japanese Manga, hung out at Comicon, rocked out in Metal bands, played chess at the master level, rode on motorcross teams, started little businesses, and embraced difference in themselves and others. They created new ways of being.

This isn’t to say that the archtype of the hard nigga isn’t still with us wreaking havoc and reaping souls, but he ain’t running shit quite like he used to. He’s got a new hood to hustle in and a legion of televised minions to do his bidding.

You seen him ‘round….spinning fictional tales of endless kilos being slung out of southern trap houses to an infinite stream of fantasy dope fiends still smoking rocks like its 1985…..You seen him ‘round…..

a former prison guard dry snitching over hot tracks under the stolen name of a real hustler, rapping about shit he ain’t never done, coke he never sold, bodies he never dropped, guns he never popped…..

You seen him ‘round….bragging about how many times he’s been shot for talking half a dollar’s worth of shit to supreme gangsters then running to the police when they come for his bitch ass…..

You seen him round …..getting caught buying machine guns with silencers from undercover alphabet boys, each charge carrying 25 years, yet he only does a bullet…down at head quarters going platinum into a tape recorder…..

you seen him ‘round…..on facebook and Worldstar flashing dope, guns and money in the same damn place, at the same damn time! at the same damn time!

Yeah, the hard nigga is still around but he seems to exist mainly in music videos and on computer screens. He’s still calling the unknowing to meet their destiny in the graveyard or the penitentiary, but not like before. Though some still struggle to resist his tragic , magnetic pull as they pass his way on the road to manhood, more and more simply slide by on a skateboard wearing sagging skinny jeans with a kick…..push……kick…..push…..and that’s a good thing…… a real good thing.